Size 12 and Ready to Rock (2 page)

“Oh no, no,” Jamie assures me. For a big girl, her voice can sound awfully babyish sometimes, maybe because she often ends her sentences on an up-note, like she’s asking a question even when she’s not. “We didn’t spend the money on paintball equipment, we checked it out free from the student sports center? I didn’t even know they
had
paintball equipment you could check out—probably because it’s always checked out during the school year when there’re so many people around?—but they do. All you have to do is leave your ID.”

“Of course,” I grumble. Why
wouldn’t
the college’s wealthy alumni have donated money to purchase paintball equipment for the students to check out for free? God forbid they’d donate it for something useful, like a science lab.

“Yeah,” Gavin says. “We
did
use the money on pizza. And beverages.” He holds up the remaining three cans of beer, dangling from the plastic rings of what was once a six-pack. “You wants? Only the best American-style lager for my womenz.”

I feel a burning sensation. It has nothing to do with the paintball with which I was recently shot. “
Beer?
You bought
beer
with money I gave you for pizza?”

“It’s Pabst Blue Ribbon,” Gavin says, looking confused. “I thought cool girl singer-songwriters were supposed to love the PBR.”

Perhaps because she’s noticed the anger sizzling in my eyes, Jamie walks over to give me a hug.

“Thanks so much for letting me stay here for the summer, Heather,” she says. “If I’d have had to spend it at home with my parents in Rock Ridge, I’d have died? Really. You have no idea what you’ve done for me. You’ve given me the wings I needed to fly. You’re the best boss ever, Heather.”

I have a pretty good idea what I’ve given Jamie, and it’s not wings. It’s free room and board for twelve weeks in exchange for twenty hours of work a week forwarding the mail of the residents who’ve gone home for the summer. Now, instead of having to commute into the city to see Gavin in secret (her parents don’t approve of him, since they think their daughter can do better than a scruffy-looking film major), Jamie can simply open her door, since he’s living right down the hall from her, as I’ve given him (unwisely, I’ve now decided) the same sweet deal.

“I’m pretty sure your parents wouldn’t agree I’m the best boss ever,” I say, resisting her hug. “I’m equally certain that if anyone in the Housing Office finds out about the paintball—and the beer—I’m not going to be anyone’s boss anymore.”

“What can they do to you?” Gavin asks indignantly. “We’re in a building that’s shut down for the summer, that’s going to be completely painted anyway, and we’re all over twenty-one. No one’s doing anything illegal.”

“Sure,” I say, sarcastically. “That’s why I got a call from Protection, because no one’s doing anything illegal.”

Gavin makes a face that looks particularly ghoulish with the protective shield still pushed back over his hair. “Was it Sarah?” he asks. “She’s the one who called in the complaint, wasn’t she? She’s always telling us to shut up because she’s trying to get her thesis finished, or whatever. I
knew
she wasn’t going to be cool with this.”

I don’t comment. I have no idea who ratted them out to the campus police. It could easily have been Sarah Rosenberg, Fischer Hall’s live-in graduate assistant assigned to respond to overnight emergencies and assist the hall director with nightly operations. Unfortunately, since the last one’s untimely demise, there’s no director of Fischer Hall for Sarah to assist. She’s been helping me supervise the student skeleton staff and waiting until Housing decides who our new hall director is going to be. I’ve already left one message for her—it’s weird that Sarah didn’t pick up, because she’s taking classes this summer and so is usually in her room. She has nothing to do but study, although she did acquire, around the time that I got secretly engaged, her first ever serious boyfriend.

“Look,” I say, taking out my cell phone to call Sarah again, “I didn’t give you guys that money for beer, and you know it. If there really is someone passed out, we need to find them right away and make sure they’re all right—”

“Oh, definitely,” Jamie says, looking worried. “But they can’t be passed out from drinking. We only bought two six-packs—”

“Well, the basketball team bought a bottle of vodka,” Gavin admits sheepishly.

“Gavin!” Jamie cries.

I feel as if I really
have
been shot, only this time in the head, not the spine, and with a real bullet. That’s the size of the migraine blooming behind my left eyeball. “
What?
” I say.

“Well, it’s not like I could stop ’em.” Gavin’s voice goes up an octave. “Have you seen how big they are? That one Russian kid, Magnus, is nearly seven feet tall. What was I going to say, ‘nyetski on the vodkaski’?”

Jamie thinks about this. “Wouldn’t it be ‘nyet’? And ‘vodka’? I think those are Russian words.”

“Fantastic,” I say, ignoring them as I press redial and call Sarah’s number again. “If any of those guys is the one who’s passed out, we’re not even going to be able to lift him onto a gurney. So where’s the basketball team right now?”

Gavin looks excited. He takes something from a pocket of his coveralls and goes to one of the casement windows. In the glow from the streetlamps outside, I see that he’s unfolding a floor plan of the building. It’s covered in mysterious notations made with red marker, presumably a plan for tonight’s battle. My headache stabs me even harder. I should be home having Chinese takeout and watching
Freaky Eaters
with my boyfriend, our Sunday-night tradition, although for some reason Cooper fails to see the brilliance of
Freaky Eaters,
preferring to watch
60 Minutes,
or as I like to call it, “The Show That Is Never About Freaky Eaters.”

“We’ll probably need to split up to find them,” Gavin says, lifting his beer and taking a swift sip before pointing at a location on the floor plan. “We set up a bunker in the library because we can hear anybody coming up the stairs from the lobby or taking the service elevator. We estimate Team Paint Crew is holing up somewhere on the first floor, most likely the cafeteria. But they could be in the basement, possibly the game room. My idea is, we get down there, then take out
all
of them at once, and win the whole game—”

“Wait,” Jamie says. “Did you hear that?”

“I didn’t hear anything,” Gavin says. “So here’s the plan. Jamie, you go down the back stairwell to the caf. Heather, you go down the front stairwell and see if anyone is hiding out in the basement.”

“You’ve been breathing too many chemicals in the darkroom at your summer film classes,” I say. Sarah’s phone has gone to voice mail again. Frustrated, I hang up without leaving another message. “And anyway, I’m not playing.”

“Heather, Heather, Heather,” Gavin says, chidingly. “Film is all digital now, no one uses darkrooms or chemicals. And you most certainly are playing. We killed you, so you’re our prisoner. You have to do what we say.”

“Seriously,” Jamie says. “Didn’t you guys hear that?”

“If you killed me, that means I’m dead,” I say. “So I shouldn’t have to play.”

“Those aren’t the rules,” Gavin says. “The way we’ll take them is, we go in through the dining office, then hide behind the salad bar—”

“McGoren,” a deep, masculine voice says from the darkness of the hallway.

Gavin looks up.

“Nobody shoots Heather,” my fiancé, Cooper, emerges from the shadows to say, “and gets away with it.”

Then he fires.

Chapter 2

Once in a While

Once in a while you regret the road not taken

Start giving up on the plans you made

Once in a while you feel so forsaken

Wondering why so many took, not gave

Once in a while you ask, how could this happen?

How did I end up in these shoes?

But once in a while you meet a special someone

Someone who chose the same path as you

And suddenly it stops feeling so lonely

Out on that road that you just had to choose

And that’s when you know it all was worth it

Because once in a while dreams do come true

“Once in a While”

Written by Heather Wells

“I told you I heard something,” Jamie says, laughing at Gavin’s stupefied expression as he stares down at the bright green paint splotch on the front of his white coveralls.

“Uncool, man,” Gavin says forlornly. “You aren’t even on an official team.”

“Where’d you get that paintball gun?” I ask as Cooper comes over to wrap an arm around my neck.

“A nice young man at the front desk handed it to me when I asked where you were,” he says. “He told me I was going to need it in order to defend myself.”

I realize belatedly that Mark, the resident assistant working at the front desk, was calling out to me as I raced up the stairs. I’d been in too much of a hurry to listen.

“What are you doing here?” I ask Cooper as he kisses the top of my head. “I told you I’d be right back.”

“Yes, that’s what you say every time you get dragged over here on a weekend,” Cooper says drily. “Then it’s three hours before I see you again. I figured this time I’d hurry things along. You don’t make enough money at this job to be at their beck and call twenty-four hours a day, Heather.”

“Don’t I know it,” I say. My annual salary as an assistant resident hall director actually puts me at the U.S. poverty level, after the IRS and NYS take their cuts. Fortunately, New York City College’s health care and benefits package is excellent, and I pay zero rent thanks to my second job doing data entry for my landlord, who’s untwined his arm from around my neck and is reloading his paint gun.

I’m not going to lie: though I disapprove of gunplay in residence halls, the effect is undeniably sexy. Of course, Cooper had to familiarize himself with firearms in order to pass the New York State Private Investigator Exam. He doesn’t actually own a gun, however, and has assured me that in real life being a private detective is nothing like it is on TV shows and movies. When he isn’t home looking stuff up online, he mostly sits around in his car taking photos of people who are cheating on their spouses.

It’s a relief to know this, since I’d worry if I thought he was out there getting shot at and then returning fire.

“This time it’s serious,” I tell him. “Campus police got a report of an unauthorized party—”

“You don’t say,” Cooper says, eyeing the beer.

“—
and
someone unconscious,” I add. “No one seems to know who called in the report. Sarah isn’t picking up, and everybody else is spread out across the building, playing paintball war.” I don’t want to seem ineffectual at my job in front of the residents, but the truth is, I’m not entirely sure how to handle the situation. I’m only an
assistant
residence hall director, after all.

Cooper has no such reservations.

“Fine,” he says and levels his paint gun at Gavin and Jamie. “New game plan. You’re all my prisoners, which means you have to do what I say.”

I can’t help letting out a tiny gasp. I used to fantasize about becoming Cooper Cartwright’s prisoner and him forcing me to do what he said. Full confession: wrist restraints were involved.

Now my fantasy is coming true! Well, sort of. It’s typical of my luck lately that there are a bunch of undergraduates hanging around, ruining it.

“Let’s go round up the rest of the players,” Cooper says, “and make sure they’re all accounted for. Then I’ll take anyone who’s interested out for Thai food.”

Gavin and Jamie groan, which I think is quite rude, considering my boyfriend has offered to buy them dinner. What is wrong with kids today? Who would rather run around shooting at one another with paint than eat delicious pad thai?

“Are you serious?” Gavin demands. “Right when we were about to demolish the basketball team?”

“Yes, I can see you were mere moments from accomplishing that,” Cooper says, one corner of his mouth sloping up sarcastically. “But my understanding is that Heather likes this job, and I don’t think she should get herself fired for fraternizing after work hours with students firing paintball rifles while intoxicated.”

I stare at my husband-to-be in the half-light. I think I’ve just fallen in love with him a little bit more. Maybe he
would
have known what to do with my dolls.

I’m turning back to my cell phone—really, where
is
Sarah? It’s completely unlike her not to call me back right away—thinking about how I’m going to repay Cooper as soon as we get home (wrist restraints will
definitely
be involved), when we hear footsteps in the hallway. From the sound of them, they’re masculine. And insistent.

“That’s them,” Gavin whispers. He grabs his reloader. “The
pansies. . . .”

He isn’t being offensive. The Pansies are the name of New York College’s basketball team. Once known as the Cougars, a cheating scandal in the 1950s resulted in their being demoted from Division I, the highest college ranking, to Division III, the lowest, and their being renamed after a flower.

One would think this would have taught the college a lesson, but no. Just this past spring “Page Six” got hold of a memo from the office of the president of New York College, Phillip Allington, written to my boss, Stan Jessup, head of the Housing Department, telling Stan to make sure that each of the school’s basketball team players received free room and board for the summer, as some of the Pansies lived as far away as Soviet Georgia and the cost of the flight home was too crushing an expense for their families to bear.